


Who We Could Be To Each Other

by grumpyphoenix



Series: Brain Salad [12]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Library, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-19
Updated: 2018-07-19
Packaged: 2019-06-12 23:22:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15351000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grumpyphoenix/pseuds/grumpyphoenix
Summary: Harry goes looking for a book in the library and ends up meeting alternate versions of himself and Draco.





	Who We Could Be To Each Other

**Author's Note:**

> Setting library  
> Genre fluff  
> Trope: divergent worlds colliding and switching
> 
> So, there's some weird stuff with my eyesight, and I have to write stuff for Bangs I'm enrolled in, so Brain Salad is on hold (unless I just get inspired), just to save writing time with my eyes.

Harry isn’t finding this book. As he wanders through the stacks, he wonders if Hermione had sent him in here to find it just to get him out of her hair. She had told him to ‘stop moping’ and then had sent him to find some obscure thing for her research, which. Of course it was a wild goose chase. If she had really wanted this thing, she’d have gotten it herself. Harry sighs. Now he’s lost. Maybe she had a point, maybe he  _ was _ talking about Draco too often. He saw the way they rolled their eyes. But that infuriating jerk just….

A sound makes him pause in his internal diatribe. People, arguing, just around the corner there. At least one of them is a voice he heard in his drea...nightmares. He was  _ not  _ dreaming about Draco. Nightmares. Whatever. Draco is arguing with someone just over there. Harry, without thinking about what he is doing, tiptoes over to look.

Around the corner, the bookshelves are suddenly different. Still huge and sturdy, but made of metal instead of old polished wood. The books are...well. Books. Regular books, not interesting wizard books. The dull spines are all just depressingly normal, with typed labels. Honestly, it looks like every library in the muggle world. Draco’s voice drifts over, and he stops puzzling over the changes to listen.

“I am  _ not _ being ridiculous,” Draco’s voice is tired. “You were hanging all over him.”

Draco himself crosses into Harry’s field of vision, pacing back and forth as he talks. Harry blinks. Was he wearing jeans? He was, and they fit him very well indeed. Just like the t-shirt clinging to his chest. He looks older, too, Harry muses. College aged, his shoulders wider and muscles filling out his frame. Not that Harry is  _ ogling _ him or anything.

Coming into sight is a tall, lanky fellow, making soothing gestures with his hands. Harry feels dizzy, because it is certainly his own self, only older.

“Sweetheart,” his doppleganger  is saying, “I promise you I was not. How many times do I have to tell you that I love you?”

Draco deflates, looking up at the other Harry through his eyelashes, “One more time might help.”

Feeling dizzy and overwhelmed, Harry flees, scrambling away and nearly knocking several books off the shelves. He can hear them kissing as he leaves, and he just runs blindly away, his heart hammering.

He comes to a skidding halt while rounding a corner. The library in front of him has changed subtly, but Harry can feel a lingering malignance to the books, as if they were watching him,  The shelves curve, a little ways from him, making a small decorative circle with benches. What a good idea, he thinks absently, a place to sit when you get lost. In the center of the circle is Draco.

Draco is on his knees, in wizarding robes this time, cowering. Over him looms Harry, but he’s wearing Slytherin robes. 

“Please, I don’t want to,” Draco begs.

Slytherin Harry’s lip curls. “Coward. The Dark Lord gave you this glorious responsibility, and you refuse?”

Draco looks down and away. “Please, Harry. We don’t have to. Just go to Dumbledore and explain, he’ll understand.”

Slytherin Harry draws his wand, murder in his eyes, and Harry can’t let him do that, so he shouts, drawing his own. Both men look over in surprise, but the world shifts a little, and he’s looking at the regular old library. Dazed, but relieved, he starts to head back.

Which means that around the corner he stumbles into what appears to be a children’s library. Draco, elegant in muggle clothing, reads to a group of children.

“And then Snow White fell into a deep sleep that looked like death, and all the dwarves mourned her... “ he wrinkles his nose. “Honestly? And they’re  just going to let her wait there in this glass box for someone to kiss her. These dwarves grew up around magic, I mean really.”

Harry, grey shot through his hair, comes and sits in the group, a little boy with platinum blond hair climbing into his lap.

“Uncle Harry?” he asks, “Daddy is right! Why don’t the dwarves just call for a healer?”

Imperiously, Draco stands. “Excellent idea, Scorpius. Let’s re-write this story, shall we, children? I will get parchment and a quill for all.”

“Pen and paper, Daddy,” the boy stage whispers, and Harry laughs, flopping back against a beanbag chair in mirth.

Draco scowls. “Isn’t your wife missing you, Harry?”

Harry grins, shaking his head. 

He doesn’t run from this one, as much as thoughtfully strolls away, feeling a deep relief when the library seems to be the same at every turn. In fact, he knows where he is, which is comforting. Wait till he tells Hermione. It doesn’t last, of course.

He takes a left to grab a book he actually needs for Herbology later, and then he stops short. He knows it’s not quite his own library, but maybe it’s close. An older version of himself is backed up against one of the shelves.

In fact, he’d bet any amount of galleons that this version of himself is a professor. Being thoroughly kissed by another professor, who of course has bright platinum blonde hair.

Professor Harry looks up at Professor Draco with such a starry gaze that it makes Harry’s own spine tingle. Professor Draco runs his thumb over the lips he’s just kissed, his pale eyes focused and sharp.

“Harry,” He whispers. The soft, possessives tone is a flash of heat through Harry’s body. He should go, but he doesn’t want to.

Professor Draco leans down and uses his elegant fingers to tilt Professor Harry’s head, placing kisses thoughtfully and deliberately along his jaw and down his neck. “We’re being watched.”

Harry startles. He starts walking carefully away, until he hears his name being called. Looking around, he sees the Professor version of himself staring.

“He could be so much more to you. Go save him from himself.”

Harry runs. All the way to Gryffindor Tower.


End file.
